{"id":2122027,"date":"2026-08-31T18:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2122027"},"modified":"2026-08-31T18:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:25:15","slug":"chess-com-vibe-coded-a-poker-site-and-says-more-is-on-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2122027","title":{"rendered":"Chess.com Vibe-Coded a Poker Site and Says More Is on the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gambit-1200×675.png”]<\/p>\n

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You\u2019d never die wondering what a site called Chess.com has to offer. The site claims over 275m members\u2014including your forlorn, terribly-ranked correspondent\u2014and is widely considered the internet\u2019s most popular chess server. It\u2019s where the world\u2019s top players tend to play their online chess, and it\u2019s where some of the game\u2019s biggest stories have played out in recent years, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

And now the site is\u2026 [checks notes] diversifying into online poker? If you\u2019ve spent any time on Chess.com, then the branding and general feel of Gambit, Chess.com\u2019s poker spin-off, will be instantly recognizable. The font is the same, the buttons are the same, and even the bots are the same\u2014including Martin, Chess.com\u2019s famously hopeless entry-level AI character, who\u2019s presumably just begging for you to take his money as well as his queen.<\/p>\n

Or, actually, no\u2014because the thing with Gambit is that there\u2019s no gambling to be done. The site is very clear about that fact from the outset\u2014the literal first thing you see when you open the site is its tagline: \u201cAll of the poker. None of the gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, poker seems like an unexpected direction for a chess site\u2019s wing-spreading ambitions. Chess, like go and checkers, is a game of perfect information\u2014everything that can be known about a given game is right there on the board in front of both players. Poker, by contrast, is pretty much the archetypal game of imperfect information\u2014your opponent doesn\u2019t know what cards you\u2019re holding, and indeed, a great deal of the skill in poker comes from using that fact to your advantage.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that there isn\u2019t a psychological component to chess\u2014there absolutely is, as anyone who\u2019s sweated over the board while the clock is ticking can attest. (And that\u2019s assuming that both parties sit politely and wait for the other to move, which isn\u2019t the case in, shall we say, more lively settings.) But no one\u2019s trying to bluff that they still have a queen when they actually sacrificed it five moves ago.<\/p>\n

Albert Cheng, Chess.com\u2019s chief growth officer, told The Verge that despite the fundamental differences between chess and poker, the site chose the latter because it has \u201clearning and social elements on top of just playing the game,\u201d which, OK, although if anyone would like to point us to a multiplayer game that lacks these elements, we\u2019re all ears. Curiously, Cheng also says that more obvious choices like go and backgammon are on the agenda for the site\u2019s next project.<\/p>\n

And finally, in a detail that\u2026 well, make of this what you will: as per The Verge\u2019s piece, \u201c[Cheng] and one other employee took Gambit from prototype to launch within a year, partly with help from AI, mainly for coding tasks.\u201d That\u2019s right, baby: the world\u2019s biggest chess site vibe-coded this thing! Boo-yah! The Verge continues, writing, \u201cwithout help from AI, getting another site up and running would have required a bigger team.\u201d A bigger team! The humanity!<\/p>\n

Well, maybe it\u2019s a good thing that Gambit doesn\u2019t require real money, because no one has any. But hey, at least we\u2019ve got vibes, right? Now if you\u2019ll excuse me, I\u2019m off to pay the landlord in magic beans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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You\u2019d never die wondering what a site called Chess.com has to offer. The site claims over 275m members\u2014including your forlorn, terribly-ranked correspondent\u2014and is widely considered the internet\u2019s most popular chess server. It\u2019s where the world\u2019s top players tend to play their online chess, and it\u2019s where some of the game\u2019s biggest stories have played out in recent years, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

And now the site is\u2026 [checks notes] diversifying into online poker? If you\u2019ve spent any time on Chess.com, then the branding and general feel of Gambit, Chess.com\u2019s poker spin-off, will be instantly recognizable. The font is the same, the buttons are the same, and even the bots are the same\u2014including Martin, Chess.com\u2019s famously hopeless entry-level AI character, who\u2019s presumably just begging for you to take his money as well as his queen.<\/p>\n

Or, actually, no\u2014because the thing with Gambit is that there\u2019s no gambling to be done. The site is very clear about that fact from the outset\u2014the literal first thing you see when you open the site is its tagline: \u201cAll of the poker. None of the gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, poker seems like an unexpected direction for a chess site\u2019s wing-spreading ambitions. Chess, like go and checkers, is a game of perfect information\u2014everything that can be known about a given game is right there on the board in front of both players. Poker, by contrast, is pretty much the archetypal game of imperfect information\u2014your opponent doesn\u2019t know what cards you\u2019re holding, and indeed, a great deal of the skill in poker comes from using that fact to your advantage.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that there isn\u2019t a psychological component to chess\u2014there absolutely is, as anyone who\u2019s sweated over the board while the clock is ticking can attest. (And that\u2019s assuming that both parties sit politely and wait for the other to move, which isn\u2019t the case in, shall we say, more lively settings.) But no one\u2019s trying to bluff that they still have a queen when they actually sacrificed it five moves ago.<\/p>\n

Albert Cheng, Chess.com\u2019s chief growth officer, told The Verge that despite the fundamental differences between chess and poker, the site chose the latter because it has \u201clearning and social elements on top of just playing the game,\u201d which, OK, although if anyone would like to point us to a multiplayer game that lacks these elements, we\u2019re all ears. Curiously, Cheng also says that more obvious choices like go and backgammon are on the agenda for the site\u2019s next project.<\/p>\n

And finally, in a detail that\u2026 well, make of this what you will: as per The Verge\u2019s piece, \u201c[Cheng] and one other employee took Gambit from prototype to launch within a year, partly with help from AI, mainly for coding tasks.\u201d That\u2019s right, baby: the world\u2019s biggest chess site vibe-coded this thing! Boo-yah! The Verge continues, writing, \u201cwithout help from AI, getting another site up and running would have required a bigger team.\u201d A bigger team! The humanity!<\/p>\n

Well, maybe it\u2019s a good thing that Gambit doesn\u2019t require real money, because no one has any. But hey, at least we\u2019ve got vibes, right? Now if you\u2019ll excuse me, I\u2019m off to pay the landlord in magic beans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/chess-com-poker-site-new-games-2000805127″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gambit-1200×675.png”] You\u2019d never die wondering what a site called Chess.com has to offer. The site claims over 275m members\u2014including your forlorn, terribly-ranked correspondent\u2014and is widely considered the internet\u2019s most popular chess server. It\u2019s where the world\u2019s top players tend to play their online chess, and it\u2019s where some of the game\u2019s biggest stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,53],"class_list":["post-2122027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-gizmodo-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}